Paspébiac 1886

Video " Joséphine and Tophile" - introduction.

"With eyes and with nostrils, with tongue and with throat, as well as with the ears, you will quickly understand that, on the Gaspésian Peninsula, cod is the basis for food and amusement, for business and for conversation, for sorrows and for hopes, for fortune and for life, and I may even say, for society itself."
Abbé Ferland 1877.

“Ipsigiag means ‘barachois’ in our language, Mi’gmaq. An early 1656 map by French geographer Nicolas Sanson identifies this place as Croipapequiac. The long sand bar here was a gathering place for our people from Gespe’g to Listuguj and from both sides of the Baie des Chaleurs, which we call Mawi Poqtapei, the ‘Grand Bay’. The site is intensely beautiful, visible from afar, and offers a quick crossing to the south part of our territory which includes Nepisiguit (Bathurst) and Sipaganji’j (Miscou Island)."

THE MI’GMAQ
Throughout the British Empire, Indigenous peoples are excluded from active participation in the mainstream economy. Habitually relegated to some form of slavery or servitude, in British North America they are usually segregated from white settlements. It is well-known that the Mi’gmaq are not welcome in the sawmills nor to fish in the rich estuaries of the Gaspésie. There are no records of their working on the sand bank here in Paspébiac.

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